AKA: King Sejong The Great
Genre: Period, Family
Episodes: 86
Broadcast period: 2008-Jan to
2008-Nov
Cast: Kim Sang Kyung, Lee
Yoon Ji, Kim Kap Soo, Lee Chun Hee, Lee Won Jong, Cho Sung Ha, Lee Hyun Woo and
Park Sang Min.
This story revolves
around the entire life of the 4th king of Joseon, one of the two with the title
‘great’, King Sejong.
As the third son of
the third king of Joseon, Prince Choon Nyung (Lee Hyun Woo) has been raised not
to be too involved in politics, but due to his natural curiosity and good
heart, Prince Choon Nyung believes to find that the books on Confucius are the ones that are
correct: that the citizens of Joseon are pure and righteous. His teacher on the
other hand decides to give the prince a lesson and tells him to walk down to
the city, instead of keeping his nose in the books. Accepting the challenge Prince
Choon Nyung walks down the city and for the first time ever realizes how, not
only poor, but grotesque all the people of Joseon are. And with the Ming
dynasty in the city, the rebels are trying to destroy the treaty that the king
made. In utter shock the prince returns home and tells his father about the
situation in the empire, only to have the king use that knowledge and punish
the citizens – as they are ‘complaining’ against the king. Once again Prince
Choon Nyung decides for his own and rings the bell of complaint, this furies
the king and he decides to punish Prince Choon Nyung by executing one of his
closes friends.
This makes Prince
Choon Nyung retreat completely from politics, but due to kind heart and jealous
family, he is pulled into a whirlwind of betrayal and lies…
Out of all the Korean period
dramas this one makes most sense – might be because I knew the history behind
it – but it still was good in the sense that made a person like me (one that is
not so much period drama fan) like it. The story of the great King Sejong is
one of the most curious ones, as I never really understood their love for him,
and I know that they do exaggerate in period dramas, but I sort of understand
this one and it fits the history part of the king’s life. I mean I am kind of
history biased, but they really are almost at point – though with a bit of
creativity in the spots that have a kind of unclear story.
As far as acting,
besides being a Lee Yoon Ji fan I haven't really seen works of any of the actors (of
course Lee Chun Hee but that’s it), so it was kind of being thrown into a
drama with "unknown" actors and a lot of “back-actors”: the actors that have
supporting characters in almost every drama. The drama was okay acted, but not
really that amazing though. And kind of weird yet beautiful love stories.. I
guess that is those day time period drama, a lot of episodes with kind of
mediocre acting, though that didn’t make it less good, just made it kind of
regular.
So sum it up: an
interesting drama with an honest approach to the actual historical events, but
on the other hand mediocre acting.
☆☆☆½ / 3½ out of 5 stars
♥♥♥½ / 3½ out of 5
hearts
No comments:
Post a Comment